“What do we do now?” Scarface scratched his head. The hostages were missing, and so was the phone.
“We can Google the Yu family’s phone number.” A lightbulb went off in the tall man’s head. “I know how to find it, I remember the Yu family’s house number.”
They had all gone past those rich residences in LA before. The important thing was that they had checked out the location of the Yu residence before so that it would be easy to dump the bodyguards there after the kidnapping.
“You’re really smart!” Scarface patted the tall man on the back.
Now that they had no way of contacting Yu Tong, they couldn’t do this for nothing; they might as well go all the way, and demand money from the Yu family.
When the great general Lu Guozhong hurried over to the highway with the bodyguards, the police had already sealed off the crime scene. A youth dressed in a black hoodie was talking to the police.
“Anyi!” The great general recognised that person; it was none other than Dugu An, who had gone off to train for over half a year.
Dugu An raised his head to look at him, then turned to the police again. “There’s a clue in the car.”
The police impatiently waved his hand. “Sir, this is an official investigation, please don’t disturb us.”
Dugu An frowned imperceptibly, and in a flash, he went around the officer and jumped into the wrecked car.
“Quickly, stop him!” When the police officer returned to his senses, Dugu An was already digging around in the backseat. A few officers hurriedly stepped forward to pull on his legs.
Dugu An deftly shook them off as he climbed out on his own. In his hand was a phone; it was the one Song Xiao had lost under the car seat. Back when he had contacted Song Xiao, Dugu An had connected to the phone via GPS. He had followed the signal here, only to find this phone, while the other signal had already been cut off.
“Lend me a car.” Dugu An looked at the off-road vehicles that the great general had brought with him, then raised his chin as he selected one right away.
“Where are you going?” The great general hurriedly followed after him and jumped into Dugu An’s car. In his heart, there was no one more reliable than this secret guard.
Dugu An glanced at the great general in the passenger seat and didn’t say anything. He shut his door and directly drove off.
“Hey, hey!” The off-road vehicle abruptly sped off. The door on the passenger side wasn’t even shut yet, and the great general was almost flung out. He hurriedly pulled the door shut and put on his seatbelt.
“I say, Anyi ah, do you have a driver’s license?” The great general looked at Dugu An cruising at a high speed and was scared witless.
“No,” Dugu An replied candidly.
“You don’t and you still dare to drive like this?!”
At the same time, the tall man had finally found the Yu residence’s recruitment hotline and was put through to the HR butler.
“Hello, this is the recruitment department.” The young butler’s voice was cordial.
“I’m Clem; your family head should know who I am. Hurry up and have him come to the phone!” The kidnapper’s tone was very aggressive.
The HR butler was frightened. He naturally knew who Clem was; it was none other than the person who had kidnapped Tang shaoye. This matter couldn’t be handled casually, and he hastily looked for help from Head Butler Cao Gonggong.
This was the number for the butler’s office, which wasn’t being monitored by the police. Who would’ve thought that the kidnappers would call the recruitment hotline ah!
Butler Cao unhurriedly picked up the phone. “My apologies, sir, this is the recruitment hotline. If you’re looking for the family head, please dial 177362.” After saying this, Butler Cao hung up directly.
The HR butler was dumbstruck. “Chief, this isn’t good ba; this could be the only lead…”
“He’ll call back.” Butler Cao smiled faintly.
“Motherfucker, I’m the kidnapper ah! Still so arrogant!” Scarface was so enraged he leapt up. When the other party heard his name, shouldn’t they be terror-stricken and cry bitterly?
“Don’t lower yourself to the level of hired help. We managed to obtain the family head’s number, at least.” The tall man shrugged, then dialled the number which the butler had given.
“Wait.” Clem grabbed the tall man’s hand. As a great bandit wanted across the nation, his IQ wasn’t always offline. “The family head’s number is definitely being monitored by the police now.”
As a result, the two of them dialled the recruitment hotline again. Butler Cao looked at the police who had already brought over the equipment, and waited for them to give him the ‘OK’ sign before he picked up. “Hello, this is the recruitment department.”
“I’m Clem. Listen well, your young master Yu Tang is in my hands, so have your family head take the call!” This time, Scarface was smarter, and bluntly stated his objective.
“Okay, okay, please wait a moment!” Butler Cao responded with a very alarmed tone, then passed the phone to the police.
During this interval, the police quickly verified the phone number and started to do a sweep via satellite for its location.
Yu Taixian walked over and picked up the phone. “I’m Yu Taixian.”
“Hello, Mr Yu…”
Yu Tang led Song Xiao as they followed the stream for a whole morning. It seemed like they would never reach the end of the winding pebble bank. By the time it was noon, their stomachs were growling.
“Dear guest, what would you like to eat?” Yu Tang put down the knapsack and had Song Xiao sit on a rock to rest.
Song Xiao looked at the emperor pretending to be a hotel waiter, and after secretly laughing for a moment, he said seriously, “What are the specialties?”
Yu Tang found a wooden stick and sharpened the end. Standing by the stream, he looked into the water. “There’s white fish, red fish, black fish…”
“Pfft…” Song Xiao truly couldn’t hold back his laughter and got up to stand next to the emperor. There really was a variety of fish in the stream. But white fish, red fish… weren’t these sort of names too casual?
“They’re foreign fish, how would zhen know what they are?” Yu Tang snorted and thrust his stick downward to unerringly spear a large, white fish.
Song Xiao gave a surprised exclamation. He wasn’t amazed at all by the fact that the emperor could hunt – the autumn hunts each year weren’t just for fun, after all – but he was a little astonished that the emperor knew how to catch fish.
Basking in his empress’s reverent gaze, His Majesty the emperor proudly pulled the fish off and tossed it to Song Xiao, then raised his hand and jabbed the spear into the water again. Because he was too cocky, this thrust was a rather poor one, and the emperor actually jabbed empty water before he hurriedly adjusted his aim.
Song Xiao silently turned away to gather twigs to make a fire.
In a fit of anger, His Majesty the emperor speared five fishes, then skewered and roasted them over the fire.
“Over there, there’s smoke!” The little kidnappers who were still bitterly searching the mountains suddenly saw cooking smoke in the distance. Shouldn’t fleeing hostages be hiding miserably in the forest and nibbling on fruits? This appearance of a cookout… In the end, they didn’t have the slightest self-awareness as hostages!
Little Theater
Kidnappers: You’ve been surrounded, quickly put down the roasted fish
Xiaoxiao: I haven’t eaten my fill T^T
Fish Tang: Continue eating, ignore them
Kidnappers: …